Modern Western culture is often considered pathological because of Progressivism. Progressivism == Modern == disease. While the previous identity is true, ultimately Progressivism thrives due to deeper, nonpartisan diseases.
If you google 'curl operator' you find a precise description and plenty of handles for googling more if you need to practice how it's done.
Learning critical thinking is exactly as mechanistic and objective. However, if you google a particular method such as 'look at something from multiple perspectives,' it is obvious that the pages were not written by a critical thinker, but instead consist of fluffy virtue-signalling. Or, in the best case, virtue-signalling with complicated obfuscations.
Progressivism took root because Hajnals were already the kind to leave the field of 'critical thinking' to the politicians.
Tuesday, February 28, 2017
Monday, February 13, 2017
Who Keeps the Laws?
Do they realize this is 100% authentic Steel Anarchism? (Via.)
However, respect for the law does not enforce itself.
At one time there was a place where the respect for rule of Law ran so deep it became true, and Law ruled. A nomoarchy. The King could be tried, and found guilty, and punished. And God's hands reached down and cradled those humble and glorious people. However, this respect did not last, and that land now affords Satan comfortable and well-appointed apartments.
Respect for the law does not propagate itself. The law does not enforce itself. As such, what is Law, from the perspective of the transgressor? Law is whatever the Lawkeeper says it is. If I want the Law on my side, I need a Lawkeeper on my side. I must Secure a Lawkeeper, who in turn must Secure my property.
To Secure my property, the Lawkeeper must have enough weaponry to force other Lawkeepers to respect it.
The problem then is to get a just Lawkeeper. In practice, dire apes are easily tricked, and occasionally directly prefer sick Lawkeepers. As example, American slaves were sold by their Lawkeepers to the Lawkeepers of America, and were primarily slaves as punishment for crimes. If indeed we can hang a werman until dead for transgression of the Law, a fortiori we can merely enslave* him. Indeed, give him the option and let him pick his preference.
(*Any lifelong slaves need to be sterilized.)
The typical dire ape knows nothing of the Law and will never know the Law. It is probably this that killed the respect I saw above. The Lawkeeper bent the Law, said it was not bent, and all agreed. But, inevitably, the bent Law was not worthy of respect, and still ignorant of the delta, true Law and bent Law were discredited both.
Yet, quis custodiet ipsos custodes. Neither can the Lawkeepers be trusted to pick just Lawkeepers.
However, respect for the law does not enforce itself.
At one time there was a place where the respect for rule of Law ran so deep it became true, and Law ruled. A nomoarchy. The King could be tried, and found guilty, and punished. And God's hands reached down and cradled those humble and glorious people. However, this respect did not last, and that land now affords Satan comfortable and well-appointed apartments.
Respect for the law does not propagate itself. The law does not enforce itself. As such, what is Law, from the perspective of the transgressor? Law is whatever the Lawkeeper says it is. If I want the Law on my side, I need a Lawkeeper on my side. I must Secure a Lawkeeper, who in turn must Secure my property.
To Secure my property, the Lawkeeper must have enough weaponry to force other Lawkeepers to respect it.
The problem then is to get a just Lawkeeper. In practice, dire apes are easily tricked, and occasionally directly prefer sick Lawkeepers. As example, American slaves were sold by their Lawkeepers to the Lawkeepers of America, and were primarily slaves as punishment for crimes. If indeed we can hang a werman until dead for transgression of the Law, a fortiori we can merely enslave* him. Indeed, give him the option and let him pick his preference.
(*Any lifelong slaves need to be sterilized.)
The typical dire ape knows nothing of the Law and will never know the Law. It is probably this that killed the respect I saw above. The Lawkeeper bent the Law, said it was not bent, and all agreed. But, inevitably, the bent Law was not worthy of respect, and still ignorant of the delta, true Law and bent Law were discredited both.
Yet, quis custodiet ipsos custodes. Neither can the Lawkeepers be trusted to pick just Lawkeepers.
Saturday, February 4, 2017
Peterson's Truth
Abstract: Peterson is saying we can't know what's really eternally true, so it's pragmatically a waste of time to worry about it. What we can do is arrange our beliefs in such a way as to serve our goals.
When I studied the idea of truth, I found enough constraints on what it could be that I concluded the definition isn't arbitrary. (E.g. the exact boundary of 'red' doesn't have to be in any particular place, but the boundaries of all ideas in the vicinity of 'true' form contradictions unless they're in a particular spot.)
Peterson closely approximates this definition, but fails to explain his reasoning. Like all but a few moderns, he finds discipline impossible, and as a result misuses language. Thus I will explain on his behalf. I will try (but fail) to leave the steelman for another time.
Timestamps will be late & wrong because I'm too lazy to rewind repeatedly.
--
Let's start with an example, because this topic is fraught with negative knowledge.
33:15
Peterson says atomic theory is wrong. What Peterson means is atomic theory is incomplete.
He would say it's irretrievably entangled with moral considerations. I would say you have to not get bogged down in the weeds. You're making a hydrogen bomb, in Peterson's tale, to prove atomic theory, but why are you proving atomic theory? Largely, for sex and survival. Don't get bogged down in the short-term parochial goal of proving a particular atomic theory.
This particular (exploding) proof, according to Peterson's unexamined priors, decreases the odds of survival. It is therefore quite literally fatally incomplete. Much as the belief [ammonia and bleach produce an interesting chemical reaction] is fatally incomplete if I decide to realize the interest of this reaction in closed quarters.
Peterson may or may not believe we should pursue atomic theory or atomic weapons. If he examined his priors and learned some game theory, he would realize it is inevitable.
At no point does Peterson claim or imply that mass is not energy, that electrons don't form a probability cloud around the nucleus, etc. What he's saying is if you try to fly a test plane without a rudder, you'll justify the insurance company's high premium for test pilots. Atomic theory is the lifting surfaces, but morality and consciousness is the rudder that stop you flying into the ground. Engineering can stop the bomb literally blowing up in your face, but it can't stop the existence of bomb technology metaphorically blowing up in your face.
--
To repeat, Peterson is saying we can't know what's really eternally true, so it's pragmatically a waste of time to worry about it. What we can do is arrange our beliefs in such a way as to serve our goals.
For example, if you're concerned about eternal truth, you start arguing about whether social justice is really 'justice' or some kind of perversion. If you're not, the discussion ends in about ten seconds when you ask, "What is it for?" and then, "Okay, what kinds of things in fact lead to that purpose?" Instead of an interminable Wittgensteinian sin, you end up with a concrete testable prediction. You try the thing and go look and see if it leads to, for example, lower crime and racial harmony, or higher crime and [politics reference redacted]ism.
Because of this, if we run across a theory which is less true in some objective detail, but better for survival, then Peterson says we should adopt this theory, even though it's 'provably' false. (I go into this with the smallpox below.) If the latter theory is better for survival, the previous theory is in fact the more false one. The new theory must have something new and true in it, even though we can't put our finger on it.
Is it really 'justice?' Who cares, it's doing what you want. Is your theory about why it's doing that correct? Who cares, it's doing what you want.
--
His goal is to justify religion, though I have to ironically note the heresy involved in this path.
If believing Jesus is God and died for your sins reduces crime over the competing theory, who cares if Jesus in fact existed or still exists? Let's say for the sake of argument it's pure fantasy. However, the mechanistic theory leads to higher crime. It must be false in a way we can't figure out, and Christianity must likewise be true in a way we can't figure out, and on balance mysterious desert sky gods is more true.
The only advantage to a truer theory, and thus the only purpose for pursuing truth in detail, is when it does what you want even harder. In other words, if you're only making a mangonel, use Newtonian physics. It's true enough. Doing a full Einsteinian treatment is a waste of time unless it's a GPS enabled silicon-age mangonel.
Peterson has the further specific claim that science is trying to use Newtonian morality to launch a moral GPS, and it's going to point your moral compass in the wrong direction. Quite possibly to civilization-ending results.
The Greek skeptics have never been widely accepted to have been refuted. Science is often said to be based on the idea that everything can be questioned; that all theories are merely our current best guess, and downright likely to be completely overturned in the future. By the lay definition, a thing that must be overturned isn't true.
Perhaps there is some way to rephrase the supposed scientific respect for contradictory evidence such that the scientist culture in fact respects it instead of resists it. Or there is at the least a way to prove there is no such rephrasing, and the cultural resistance is inevitable.
Even if we had access to eternal truth, it's not an end to itself. (Well, for me it is.) We access this truth for some purpose, and it therefore philosophically behooves us to keep this purpose in mind. Especially as our minds are limited - we must cull some knowledge, not access all of it - we're apt to make complicated versions of the [mustard gas reaction for fun] thing.
Anyway a few more details, then I'll try to sum it up again.
--
45:38
Peterson is of course correct that leaving out subjectivity is fatal. I've written about this extensively.
--
45:48
--
47:45
Harris thinks he doesn't discount subjectivity. I'm genuinely laughing out loud at how deluded he is.
"No Plato, these shadows are totes real! See, that one right there is green!"
>You look at the ruddy shadow. There's a little post-it note. It says 'green' on it.
--
59:52
Peterson is correct. Harris is ontologically committed to agreeing with Peterson. Harris' brain is too broken to realize it though.
--
After this my patience was utterly exhausted. Spot checks makes it looks like Harris continues to repeat the dogma as if Peterson hadn't heard it millions of times before, and Peterson continues to repeat his failure to communicate in various different ways.
I did find a thing about smallpox that might be a good example.
--
So there's a lab of good people who don't understand smallpox, and a lab of bad people who do.
Harris wants to say the bad people believe something true about smallpox.
Peterson is saying neither is true enough. Both of these sets of beliefs end up with smallpox epidemics that kill enough people to disrupt civilization. "But the bad folks have correct biology." Good for them. So what?
What you want is a theory of smallpox-and-morality, and these things aren't disentangleable the way Harris thinks they are, which leads to no smallpox epidemics. If it gets the smallpox biology wrong, then so be it. It beats the bad lab with good biology.
Note - Harris is ontologically committed to communism. "But the first lab had good intentions!" Right. Just like Lincoln and FDR had 'good' intentions. Do you want to ban medical malpractice lawsuits, or do we condemn FDR and Lincoln for their results?
If Harris wanted a discussion, he would have said something like, "But we can in fact combine good biology and no epidemics. Indeed in reality (not thought experiment) it should even make it easier." And indeed this is the case. But the priority is the no epidemics. Scientists do not have this prioritization, and neither do their funders.
Christianity might be patently false. There should be a theory that's not false but doesn't lead to ennui, alienation, atomization and crime. But we don't know what it is. (I might know what it is. Certainly, neither Harris nor Peterson know it.) The problem is having Christianity widespread is incompatible with having Progressivism widespread. They're self-entangled in complex ways. Trying to have it a la carte doesn't work: we can't simply combine non-genocidalism with good smallpox biology like we easily can with the lab. You can have Democracy or Christianity, but they cannot coexist.
The further problem is that Christianity is incompatible with widespread Philosophy as well. The Bible has logical contradictions. If we are to seek the truth, then both Christianity and Progressivism must fall. However, in the meantime, Christianity is clearly the more true of the pair, and should be kept around, even if you don't accept that Progressivism is philosophical sin.
--
Tangents
Talk about being bogged down in the weeds. What is this conversation for? At which point do we accept that our theory about how conversation works has been falsified, because we have comprehensively failed to do whatever it is for? If you're talking to me, it takes substantially less than an hour and a half.
By the way, in short Harris' problem is he's not trying to understand what Peterson is saying, he's trying to convert Peterson to Harrisism. Peterson is likewise trying to evangelize and has zero interest in being converted, and thus unproductivity ensues.
As a judge I find in favour of Peterson, as the host has the power. When you invite a guest you're executing the guest in the sense of a program. If Harris did not invite Peterson for the purpose of activating him, he did a dumb, and Gnon punishes him accordingly. If Harris listeners don't already know what Harris thinks, they're beyond help, but they're curious about what Peterson thinks, and Harris' failure is not being curious on their behalf. If he could not bring himself to be curious, he should have recused himself.
When I studied the idea of truth, I found enough constraints on what it could be that I concluded the definition isn't arbitrary. (E.g. the exact boundary of 'red' doesn't have to be in any particular place, but the boundaries of all ideas in the vicinity of 'true' form contradictions unless they're in a particular spot.)
Peterson closely approximates this definition, but fails to explain his reasoning. Like all but a few moderns, he finds discipline impossible, and as a result misuses language. Thus I will explain on his behalf. I will try (but fail) to leave the steelman for another time.
Timestamps will be late & wrong because I'm too lazy to rewind repeatedly.
--
Let's start with an example, because this topic is fraught with negative knowledge.
33:15
Peterson says atomic theory is wrong. What Peterson means is atomic theory is incomplete.
He would say it's irretrievably entangled with moral considerations. I would say you have to not get bogged down in the weeds. You're making a hydrogen bomb, in Peterson's tale, to prove atomic theory, but why are you proving atomic theory? Largely, for sex and survival. Don't get bogged down in the short-term parochial goal of proving a particular atomic theory.
This particular (exploding) proof, according to Peterson's unexamined priors, decreases the odds of survival. It is therefore quite literally fatally incomplete. Much as the belief [ammonia and bleach produce an interesting chemical reaction] is fatally incomplete if I decide to realize the interest of this reaction in closed quarters.
Peterson may or may not believe we should pursue atomic theory or atomic weapons. If he examined his priors and learned some game theory, he would realize it is inevitable.
At no point does Peterson claim or imply that mass is not energy, that electrons don't form a probability cloud around the nucleus, etc. What he's saying is if you try to fly a test plane without a rudder, you'll justify the insurance company's high premium for test pilots. Atomic theory is the lifting surfaces, but morality and consciousness is the rudder that stop you flying into the ground. Engineering can stop the bomb literally blowing up in your face, but it can't stop the existence of bomb technology metaphorically blowing up in your face.
--
To repeat, Peterson is saying we can't know what's really eternally true, so it's pragmatically a waste of time to worry about it. What we can do is arrange our beliefs in such a way as to serve our goals.
For example, if you're concerned about eternal truth, you start arguing about whether social justice is really 'justice' or some kind of perversion. If you're not, the discussion ends in about ten seconds when you ask, "What is it for?" and then, "Okay, what kinds of things in fact lead to that purpose?" Instead of an interminable Wittgensteinian sin, you end up with a concrete testable prediction. You try the thing and go look and see if it leads to, for example, lower crime and racial harmony, or higher crime and [politics reference redacted]ism.
Because of this, if we run across a theory which is less true in some objective detail, but better for survival, then Peterson says we should adopt this theory, even though it's 'provably' false. (I go into this with the smallpox below.) If the latter theory is better for survival, the previous theory is in fact the more false one. The new theory must have something new and true in it, even though we can't put our finger on it.
Is it really 'justice?' Who cares, it's doing what you want. Is your theory about why it's doing that correct? Who cares, it's doing what you want.
--
His goal is to justify religion, though I have to ironically note the heresy involved in this path.
If believing Jesus is God and died for your sins reduces crime over the competing theory, who cares if Jesus in fact existed or still exists? Let's say for the sake of argument it's pure fantasy. However, the mechanistic theory leads to higher crime. It must be false in a way we can't figure out, and Christianity must likewise be true in a way we can't figure out, and on balance mysterious desert sky gods is more true.
The only advantage to a truer theory, and thus the only purpose for pursuing truth in detail, is when it does what you want even harder. In other words, if you're only making a mangonel, use Newtonian physics. It's true enough. Doing a full Einsteinian treatment is a waste of time unless it's a GPS enabled silicon-age mangonel.
Peterson has the further specific claim that science is trying to use Newtonian morality to launch a moral GPS, and it's going to point your moral compass in the wrong direction. Quite possibly to civilization-ending results.
The Greek skeptics have never been widely accepted to have been refuted. Science is often said to be based on the idea that everything can be questioned; that all theories are merely our current best guess, and downright likely to be completely overturned in the future. By the lay definition, a thing that must be overturned isn't true.
Perhaps there is some way to rephrase the supposed scientific respect for contradictory evidence such that the scientist culture in fact respects it instead of resists it. Or there is at the least a way to prove there is no such rephrasing, and the cultural resistance is inevitable.
Even if we had access to eternal truth, it's not an end to itself. (Well, for me it is.) We access this truth for some purpose, and it therefore philosophically behooves us to keep this purpose in mind. Especially as our minds are limited - we must cull some knowledge, not access all of it - we're apt to make complicated versions of the [mustard gas reaction for fun] thing.
Anyway a few more details, then I'll try to sum it up again.
--
45:38
Peterson is of course correct that leaving out subjectivity is fatal. I've written about this extensively.
--
45:48
"I think about science as a tool instead of a description of reality."Science defines itself as a tool and not a description of reality. This, however, is a motte-and-bailey thing. Scientists and Harris think of science as a description of reality, and as a matter of fact this makes them resist the overturning they say they support. This is the sort of pragmatic 'not true enough' thing which Peterson is trying to point out.
--
47:45
Harris thinks he doesn't discount subjectivity. I'm genuinely laughing out loud at how deluded he is.
"No Plato, these shadows are totes real! See, that one right there is green!"
>You look at the ruddy shadow. There's a little post-it note. It says 'green' on it.
--
59:52
Peterson is correct. Harris is ontologically committed to agreeing with Peterson. Harris' brain is too broken to realize it though.
--
After this my patience was utterly exhausted. Spot checks makes it looks like Harris continues to repeat the dogma as if Peterson hadn't heard it millions of times before, and Peterson continues to repeat his failure to communicate in various different ways.
I did find a thing about smallpox that might be a good example.
--
So there's a lab of good people who don't understand smallpox, and a lab of bad people who do.
Harris wants to say the bad people believe something true about smallpox.
Peterson is saying neither is true enough. Both of these sets of beliefs end up with smallpox epidemics that kill enough people to disrupt civilization. "But the bad folks have correct biology." Good for them. So what?
What you want is a theory of smallpox-and-morality, and these things aren't disentangleable the way Harris thinks they are, which leads to no smallpox epidemics. If it gets the smallpox biology wrong, then so be it. It beats the bad lab with good biology.
Note - Harris is ontologically committed to communism. "But the first lab had good intentions!" Right. Just like Lincoln and FDR had 'good' intentions. Do you want to ban medical malpractice lawsuits, or do we condemn FDR and Lincoln for their results?
If Harris wanted a discussion, he would have said something like, "But we can in fact combine good biology and no epidemics. Indeed in reality (not thought experiment) it should even make it easier." And indeed this is the case. But the priority is the no epidemics. Scientists do not have this prioritization, and neither do their funders.
Christianity might be patently false. There should be a theory that's not false but doesn't lead to ennui, alienation, atomization and crime. But we don't know what it is. (I might know what it is. Certainly, neither Harris nor Peterson know it.) The problem is having Christianity widespread is incompatible with having Progressivism widespread. They're self-entangled in complex ways. Trying to have it a la carte doesn't work: we can't simply combine non-genocidalism with good smallpox biology like we easily can with the lab. You can have Democracy or Christianity, but they cannot coexist.
The further problem is that Christianity is incompatible with widespread Philosophy as well. The Bible has logical contradictions. If we are to seek the truth, then both Christianity and Progressivism must fall. However, in the meantime, Christianity is clearly the more true of the pair, and should be kept around, even if you don't accept that Progressivism is philosophical sin.
--
Tangents
Talk about being bogged down in the weeds. What is this conversation for? At which point do we accept that our theory about how conversation works has been falsified, because we have comprehensively failed to do whatever it is for? If you're talking to me, it takes substantially less than an hour and a half.
By the way, in short Harris' problem is he's not trying to understand what Peterson is saying, he's trying to convert Peterson to Harrisism. Peterson is likewise trying to evangelize and has zero interest in being converted, and thus unproductivity ensues.
As a judge I find in favour of Peterson, as the host has the power. When you invite a guest you're executing the guest in the sense of a program. If Harris did not invite Peterson for the purpose of activating him, he did a dumb, and Gnon punishes him accordingly. If Harris listeners don't already know what Harris thinks, they're beyond help, but they're curious about what Peterson thinks, and Harris' failure is not being curious on their behalf. If he could not bring himself to be curious, he should have recused himself.
Wednesday, February 1, 2017
Political Formulae are Perverse
Every political formula ends up promoting its opposite.
#anarcho-pessimism
Not-exploitable because the point of political formulae is to sound aesthetically pleasing to dire apes.
Simply, because 'impact.'
Divine right leads to satanic kings. Sure you can do what God probably wants, but you know you're really high status if you can embody pure heresy and get away with it.
Aristocracy, the rule of the most virtuous, leads to rule by the most depraved reprobate.
Right of conquest is more stable, as it's pretty hard to argue that you weren't beat up when you were. Plus if you argue too hard you get beat up again. This leads to rule by wordy priests. You know you're really high status if you manage to rule without laying a finger on anyone, so as soon as the conquistadors become demoralized or tired, priests seize everything. (You are here.)
Pure ethno-nationalist democracy is worse. Not only will they compete to make pointless yet expensive policy, they'll compete to be as foreign as possible. The Cathedral's core is still mostly white...do you really want to see what a mature ethnat Cathedral would look like?
Pure plutocracy would probably lead to rule by priests again. You know you're really high status if you can tell folk what to do after taking a vow of poverty. You wanna give it a shot? For Science? Maybe it would be warriors beating folk up again instead. Thug intimidates rich dude until he's appointed Evil Vizier. Fuck accountability, am I right? Of course I'm right.
Neocameralism is probably a special case of plutocracy. If you're rich enough you can buy the corporation/country. Hence, the game becomes how few stocks you can own and still get the CEO to do what you want. Alternatively, sabotage the CEO's reputation with the owner, thus getting them fired, until they go so far down the list your buddy gets to be CEO.
Finally we come to Exit.
Exit is still pretty good. Like conquest, it's hard to argue that North Koreans can leave if they want to. Similarly, even in NK, it's hard to restrict the movement of the more important members of society. Nonetheless, if Exit is the formula, the game becomes how much of a prison state you can construct and get away with it. And since everyone will be trying it, there will be a sort of voiceless collusion.
Basically you want your formula to be 'a legitimate state tortures and imprisons everybody.' However, this isn't a viable formula for legitimizing coercion: it doesn't seem legit to anybody. Hence the non-exploitability.
The solution is to convince dire apes that coercion is evil.
(Is the joke sufficiently clear?)
#anarcho-pessimism
Not-exploitable because the point of political formulae is to sound aesthetically pleasing to dire apes.
"The conventional word is impact. Impact implies social status: it determines how often you get laid, and with whom. [...] To have impact, you must have an effect, and that effect must not have happened without you. [...] there is no impact unless you (a) produce some change, and (b) do so against some resistance."Democracy is supposed to lead to policies that the governed consent to. But what kind of loser does what they're supposed to? You know you're really high status if you can provoke maximum dissent and get away with it. Thus we have a competition to implement the most pointless yet destructive policy.
Divine right leads to satanic kings. Sure you can do what God probably wants, but you know you're really high status if you can embody pure heresy and get away with it.
Aristocracy, the rule of the most virtuous, leads to rule by the most depraved reprobate.
Right of conquest is more stable, as it's pretty hard to argue that you weren't beat up when you were. Plus if you argue too hard you get beat up again. This leads to rule by wordy priests. You know you're really high status if you manage to rule without laying a finger on anyone, so as soon as the conquistadors become demoralized or tired, priests seize everything. (You are here.)
Pure ethno-nationalist democracy is worse. Not only will they compete to make pointless yet expensive policy, they'll compete to be as foreign as possible. The Cathedral's core is still mostly white...do you really want to see what a mature ethnat Cathedral would look like?
Pure plutocracy would probably lead to rule by priests again. You know you're really high status if you can tell folk what to do after taking a vow of poverty. You wanna give it a shot? For Science? Maybe it would be warriors beating folk up again instead. Thug intimidates rich dude until he's appointed Evil Vizier. Fuck accountability, am I right? Of course I'm right.
Neocameralism is probably a special case of plutocracy. If you're rich enough you can buy the corporation/country. Hence, the game becomes how few stocks you can own and still get the CEO to do what you want. Alternatively, sabotage the CEO's reputation with the owner, thus getting them fired, until they go so far down the list your buddy gets to be CEO.
Finally we come to Exit.
Exit is still pretty good. Like conquest, it's hard to argue that North Koreans can leave if they want to. Similarly, even in NK, it's hard to restrict the movement of the more important members of society. Nonetheless, if Exit is the formula, the game becomes how much of a prison state you can construct and get away with it. And since everyone will be trying it, there will be a sort of voiceless collusion.
Basically you want your formula to be 'a legitimate state tortures and imprisons everybody.' However, this isn't a viable formula for legitimizing coercion: it doesn't seem legit to anybody. Hence the non-exploitability.
The solution is to convince dire apes that coercion is evil.
(Is the joke sufficiently clear?)
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